


Derek Morgan and the Cool Weird Girl

by mcgarrygirl78



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-16
Updated: 2014-03-16
Packaged: 2018-01-15 23:24:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1323139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcgarrygirl78/pseuds/mcgarrygirl78
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“A linguist at a loss for words.” Derek grinned.  “I think I should be writing this down.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Derek Morgan and the Cool Weird Girl

Thunder rumbled in the skies above them as Alex walked into the kitchen on Tuesday morning. This would be her second cup of coffee but she didn’t mind one bit. She’d had a late night but it least it was spent Skyping with James and not looking for a murderer. These days it was the little things that got her through.

“Oh wow, look at you. That smile is absolutely exuberant. What's going on?”

Derek was leaning on the counter. He had a cup of coffee in one hand and his cell phone in the other. The smile on his face could probably light the whole dark sky. It made Alex smile too when that was the last thing she felt like doing this morning.

“Ellie got the four thirty train from New York on Thursday evening; she's definitely coming. She convinced her mom if she got all A’s on her report card that she could ditch school on a Friday and have a three day weekend down here with me. I'm surprised her mom went for it but I think the kid deserves it. I'm looking forward to spending some quality time with her. She’s not gonna be a kid forever…the time will come when she’s too cool to hang with the grownups.”

“Ellie?” Alex added a little sugar to her coffee. “I didn’t know you had a daughter, Derek. I mean we’re still getting to know each other but I thought I would’ve picked up on that one by now. How old is she?”

“She’ll be 14 in July. This is her first year of high school and her mom and I were both worried how she would get acclimated. Ellie does things in a special Ellie way and that’s just how it is. She’s at The Spence School, which is expensive. 

“It’s ridiculously expensive. I thought it might be excessive and she would rebel but I don’t get a real say…you know. It turns out she likes it enough; enough as any kid would like school. Those straight A’s are a big deal. I wanna celebrate.”

“What do you mean you don’t get a say?” Alex asked. “I know she lives in a different state but she's still your daughter.”

“She’s not my biological daughter.” Morgan said. “Her dad was killed in the line of duty out in L.A. on a case we worked. The last thing he asked me before he died was to take care of Ellie. So I take care of Ellie.”

“You are…”

“What?” Morgan looked up from his phone.

“I'm thinking of the words.” Alex said.

“A linguist at a loss for words.” Derek grinned. “I think I should be writing this down.”

“Oh ha ha.”

“So what are you doing this weekend, Blake?” he asked as they left the kitchen and returned to the crowded bullpen. “We’re not going to be on a jet or in a hotel room. I hope you have plans.”

“I don’t.” Alex shook her head. 

“You're not even going to Boston?”

“James is leaving for a week long seminar on infectious diseases in Vienna on Thursday. Its spring break at Harvard so he doesn’t have to worry about missing any classes. Its spring break at Georgetown as well so I was really looking forward to his coming home or my going up there. Alas, no.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.”

“I'm used to it.” There was a sadness in Alex’s voice as she cleared her throat. “It’s just that we both got the same time off…that never happens. And now we can't even enjoy it together. But I know how much that convention means to him. He's giving a speech on the reemergence of small pox and the connections to lack of immunizations amongst American children. It’s a big deal.”

“Why don’t you just go with him?” Morgan asked. “I hear Vienna is gorgeous in the almost spring.”

“It really is. But he's going to be so busy and I’d probably only be able to stay for a long weekend. The jetlag alone means I’ll be too tired to get anything accomplished while I'm there. Then I’d get home and it’d take almost as long to recover. I've got DVDs, books, and a decent amount of food in my fridge for a change. I think I’ll be OK.”

“Well do you want some company?”

“Hmm?” Alex had already started looking at the _New York Times_ crossword. She was working things out in her head before attacking it with her pen. She should’ve been doing paperwork but 15 minutes or so to loosen up her mind would make the day that much more successful.

“You could hang out with Ellie and me. You’re the only member of the team who hasn’t met her yet. She’d like you, I'm sure of it. I mean if you want to chill at home I completely understand, no pressure, but I've got an awesome weekend planned. OK, I've got a couple of cool things planned.”

“You're not going to see your girlfriend at all this weekend?”

Alex felt bad because she couldn’t remember the woman’s name. Derek had only mentioned her a few times. She knew he was a private person and inviting her to spend time with him outside of Quantico was a sign of trust and friendship. She’d been getting a couple from his direction lately and Alex appreciated that. She would have to tread lightly; Derek didn’t give trust without putting a lot on the line. If she violated or broke it in any way that would be the end of their relationship. In the case of Derek Morgan, slow, steady, and cautious was the way to go until they were truly friends.

“Savannah is in The Bahamas for her cousin’s wedding. I haven’t exactly met her family yet and she thought an event of this nature might be overwhelming for all of us. Not to mention that she didn’t want to take any attention away from her cousin, who's like a sister to her. I think she just wanted to get her party on by herself. 

“I'm not holding that against her. She works just as hard as I do. At least she didn’t ask me to dog sit. So, two FBI agents, no significant others, and a teenage girl…what kind of shenanigans can we get into.”

“That sounds like fun.” Alex smiled.

“So we can do Saturday; make a day out of it.” Derek said. “Ellie and I are going to Potomac to work on some restoration I'm doing on a house there. It’s antebellum and definitely needs some work before they can sell it at a ridiculous price. Usually I do my own places, restore and then flip, but this place was so amazing that I found it too hard to turn down. 

“I've got a crew of four working with me but they don’t work weekends. So I'm gonna take Ellie and introduce her to a hard day’s work. After that I'm sure it'll be Chinese, video games, or 70s Kung Fu films. Maybe we can watch something else once Ellie retires to her room to do what teenagers do.”

“Oh wow, full day.”

“Definitely. I don’t get to see her enough so I want to make sure we get all of our time in. On Friday she’ll drag me out to one of these malls to pick out the perfect gift for her straight A’s. I wasn’t sure if I was going to work on that kind of rewards system, my mama never really did, but Ellie hasn’t always had it easy since her dad died. I want to make sure she knows and remembers that if she works hard, good things come. Even if that good thing is a leather jacket or a pair of overpriced combat boots.”

“She's almost 14…overpriced combat boots are definitely a good thing.” Alex said.

“So you're welcome to come and spend the day as long as you don’t mind dogs and kids who talk faster than the speed of light and jump subjects like Frogger jumps over cars.”

“It sounds nice. I’ll um, I’ll think about it.”

“Great.” Morgan was grinning again. “I think Ellie is really gonna like you…you'll cool weird.”

“I'm cool weird?” Alex raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t act like you didn’t know, Blake.”

Morgan got up with his coffee cup and walked out of the bullpen before Alex had a chance to respond. She didn’t quite know what cool weird was. Instinct told her that it was a good thing so she shouldn’t put too much thought into it. The linguist side of her, the part of her brain that knew that there was meaning in the words people chose, was almost desperate for an explanation. Alex figured she had better show up on Saturday to find out.

***


End file.
